Sofas left on the pavement, that’s one thing. But half a sofa? Like the single abandoned shoe, what’s the story here? Was it just one hell of a party? Has it been sheared off, caught in mid-transition through a wormhole to another dimension?
A morning meeting with a colleague, held in the pleasant surroundings of the Christie Bistro. I had my usual builder’s brew but she went for the mint tea option and I was taken by the appearance of the leaves suspended in the water. As you see here. (I mean, that’s what this blog is, isn’t it? I show you what I see each day…)
Also, a minor milestone — I make this the blog’s 500th Manchester shot.
As well as a profusion of fruit this year does seem to have produced larger-than-usual amounts of fungi. I don’t know what species is this butter-coloured toadstool, but I liked the way one of them had turned up its edges and thus allowed a little pool of water to gather at the top, that then glinted in what sunlight had managed to push through the trees above. Like a little bird-bath in a garden. The fairies gather…
The second monochrome shot in a row but it was a way of bringing some added interest to this view. I worked at home all day and did not leave the house. I know it’s a pretty distinctive view, in relative terms. But it is also everyday, for us at least.
This is one of those junk shops that has grandiose self-image and calls itself an “Antiques Centre” but we’ll let it off. I believe this object is an old typesetting tray, the kind of thing useful when typefaces came as hundreds of small carved pieces of metal. What practical use to anyone it is nowadays, I cannot imagine, but on the other hand it is a pretty cool lump of wood if you ask me. Not that I decided to lug it home or anything.
Football again, but definitely not non-league today. The Etihad Stadium is the home of current, and probably future, champions Manchester City, where even the pre-match watering of the pitch is done on a suitably grandiose scale. To call these massive jets of liquid ‘sprinklers’ rather diminishes them. Better a picture of them in the sunlight than of anything that happened on the pitch today, anyway — at least from my ‘visiting fan’ perspective.
After a week in northern Finland, where it was rather damp and chilly throughout, at least there was sunshine when I had to go into Manchester today and, well, spend most of the day inside teaching. But never mind. This is a rather mundane shot in the end, with a green splotch of flare on it, but I like the shadows and light.
The idea for this shot came to me as I was listening to the last keynote speaker at the conference, and for me the last event of it, as I headed for Oulu airport straight after it had finished. It was a bugger to get all things in focus though, and when I managed it, he wasn’t quite doing the interesting things with his hands that he was on other shots: so they look a bit like a big lump here. Still, this is basically the shot that I was trying to capture.
End of the morning session — time for lunch. I chose this shot because I like the mixture of stasis and movement, some people are happy to stick around for a little while longer and chat, others (and I admit I am typically among this latter group) bounce up at the opportunity to be first in the queue for lunch.
Where there is a conference, then there will be a conference reception, usually held in whatever local municipal building is considered most convenient: here, Oulu City Hall. It had a ceiling considered worthy of documenting by my fellow delegate Jesús — who comes from Mexico, the sort of place where they name their men Jesús, a name I have always thought must be something to live up to.
Being 42 